


Black Flag

by inlovewithnight



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-03-07
Updated: 2007-03-07
Packaged: 2017-10-15 15:07:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/162050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inlovewithnight/pseuds/inlovewithnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rank and file justice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Black Flag

"You're not going to do anything about it."

The Admiral shook his head, pouring two glasses of ambrosia. "Not formally."

"You can't let him just get away with this." Tigh grabbed one glass, downed it quickly, and stared at Adama in disbelief. "It was treason and sabotage, Bill."

"I don't have to do anything about it."

Tigh looked up, startled, and the Admiral waited until understanding dawned on his face.

"It was all kept classified," Tigh said, uncertain. "The virus, the plan. The crew doesn't know we lost our chance to end all this."

"You know as well as I do that nothing stays secret on a Battlestar." Adama put his glass down and turned away. "Rumors will get out. Whispers. It won't be accurate, but it'll be enough. And in his case, the gun's been loaded for a while anyway. Bound to happen. This will just pull the trigger."

Tigh shook his head and reached for the bottle. "Damn right it will. Better hope that's not literal."

"It won't be." Adama stared down at his desk, scattered paperwork and pens. "There are traditions. Rules."

"Rules are different now, Bill." Tigh shook his head again and turned to go. "Remember that."  
**  
Word did get out, running down the corridors of Galactica like snakes. Down to the flight deck, the pilots' bunks, the Marine rec, the enlisted crew showers. Bits and pieces of what really happened, turned inside out and cut apart, dyed dark and bleached light and changed with every repetition.

Frustrations built and bottled over too many months started burning slowly, building to a point that nothing inside the lines, or even something _on_ the line like a Dance, was going to put it out.

Sometimes people just go mad, and something has to get hurt.

So two words ran back up the corridors again, crossing back and forth throughout the ship, and the flames crawled up ugly and bright.

 _Black flag_ , went the whispers. _Black flag._  
**  
"Helo!" Sharon laughed, pulling back and swatting at his hands. "I have CAP. Come on. I have to get down to the deck."

"Just five more minutes," he coaxed, reaching for her again.

"It's never five minutes," she said, shaking her head and laughing again as he pouted and flopped down across the bed. "Oh, stop, I'll see you tonight."

"You're seeing me right now," he began, then stopped as someone pounded on the hatch.

Sharon went over and bumped the hatch open with her hip, tugging her hair up into a ponytail. "Maggie? What's wrong?"

Helo sat up as Racetrack stepped into the room. She looked at him and her shoulders slumped a bit. "Thank the Gods you're still here."

"What's going on?" Sharon pulled the hatch closed again and frowned. "I need to get down to the deck, so just spill it."

"We have to get him off the ship."

"What?" Helo shook his head. "Can't do it. I just got off shift, I'm frakking exhausted, I'm not going anywhere."

"Helo, you don't get it," Racetrack said sharply. "You _have_ to get off Galactica."

"Why?"

Racetrack glanced at Sharon. "There's a black flag."

"No way," Sharon said, her voice tight. "No frakking way."

"We don't have a lot of time." Racetrack shifted her weight back and forth, restless, glancing over her shoulder at the hatch. "We have to get going or it's going to be too late."

"I'm not going anywhere."

Sharon whirled to face him. "Are you kidding me? You're not just going to stick around here and let them--"

"If I take off, they'll just save it till I get back, and it'll be worse." He reached under the bed for his boots and started lacing them up again. "Better to just face the music and get it over with."

"It's barbaric and it's insane and they can't get away with it." Sharon's hands were clenched in fists at her sides. "We'll go to the Admiral and--"

Helo stood up. "The Admiral won't do anything, Sharon."

"Then they're going to have to take on both of us," she snapped, her hand falling to her sidearm. "Because I'm not just going to stand here and let them do that to you."

"You're going to go fly CAP, and I'm going to be fine." He tugged a t-shirt over his head. "Sharon, you know there are rules. It'll be fine."

"The rules." She laughed, sharp-edged and brittle. "Don't kill you, and don't break your hands. That leaves a lot of frakking room, Helo. Lots of stuff that is not _fine_."

"If we were on Aerilon, I'd get dragged behind a tractor or a combine or something all the way through town. Back home on Scorpia? They'd string me up in a tree and spray water on me till I froze to death." He emptied his pockets out on the bed, leaving everything that could get turned around against him behind. "At least in the Fleet there's tradition. Rules. They won't do anything that might kill me. And I can take whatever else they dish out."

"Stay here," Racetrack said, her voice dull and tired. "If you won't leave the ship, then at least stay here in your quarters. They might not be worked up enough to come in after you."

"I'm going down to the rec."

"You're just going to wait for them?" Sharon slammed her fist against the wall. "You're just going to..."

"Sharon. Baby." He reached out and caught her hands, and she let him hold her still, though Gods knew she didn't have to. "It's gonna happen one way or another. If I walk in on my own, it might take the edge off."

She looked over at Racetrack again, raising an eyebrow in question. Racetrack shrugged. "It might. I don't know. Maybe."

Sharon gave a low, shuddering sigh. "You're an idiot," she said quietly, tugging her hands free. "Just…frak, you're an idiot. And I love you."

"I'll be here when you get back," he said. "I promise."

She shook her head, grabbing her jacket and turning to the hatch. "You'd better be."  
**  
"Hey, Starbuck." Hot Dog strolled across the flight deck, tossing his helmet in the air and catching it. "What are you doing here?"

She didn't look up from her preflight checks. "Getting ready for CAP, what the frak does it look like I'm doing here?"

"Just thought you'd be down below." He was grinning, broad and cheerful as if he was going out to the bar instead of another Gods-damned shift at CAP. "Black flag, right? Thought you'd be all over that."'

"Yeah, well. You thought wrong. But I bet you're used to that." She tossed her checklist down to the deckhand waiting by her plane and reached for her helmet. "You're not even really Fleet, nugget. What the frak do you know about black flags?"

"I haven't been a nugget for a long time, Starbuck." She glanced up and the smile was gone from his face. She stared at him for a long moment, remembering names and faces so long gone they were all threatening to blur together.

"Guess not," she muttered, turning back to her bird. "But no. I'm not helping."

"Because it's Helo?"

She shook her head and stepped into the cockpit. "I'm not saying he doesn't deserve this, Costanza, I'm just saying I'm not going to be lending a hand. Now go get in your frakking Viper and get ready to fly."  
**  
The rules were the rules, no room for argument, but the _etiquette_ of the thing was a bit more complicated.

You didn't want to play, you didn't have to, but you kept your mouth shut and your head down and stayed the frak out of the way. And if someone who did want to go do a bit of hurting asked you to swap shifts, you did it. No questions and for frak's sake no comments.

Anything with rank insignia on it came off at the door. No rank in the room, no giving way to a superior, none of the structures that held together the rest of Fleet life. All that had to wait until the flag came down again.

Bring your own props if you wanted them. No limits, except hands (need those to do the work, and the flagged and fragged _would_ be back to work within a day, even if he was crawling; part of the brass being able to turn a blind eye was that everything kept getting done the way it should) or killing the dumb bastard.

And when it was done, you dropped it, and you _dropped it_ , hauled the dumb bastard down to sick bay because he was your buddy again, and everything moved on in the slow clockwork machinery of the Fleet.  
**  
"That's enough."

Seelix and Connor looked up, then slowly stepped back as footsteps echoed off the flooring, approaching them. Helo kept his eyes shut, his body curled around itself and close to the floor, waiting for the next strike.

"Helo."

Lee's voice. That had been Lee walking across the room, then. The CAG coming down to check in on his men, how they were doing their job. How justice was coming along.

"Get up."

He exhaled slowly, blood dripping from his mouth to the floor, and pushed himself up onto his hands and knees. He lifted his head, fraction by fraction, looking from Lee's boots to his knees and up and up until he forced his eyes to focus on Lee's face. Lee stared back at him, blank and impassive, eyes unreadable.

"Get. Up."

Off his hands, then, all the way up to his knees, and he gathered the last bit of strength he had, dragging each of his muscles on-line for one burst of effort to make it to his feet. He got halfway there, tottered, fell back to the deck again, hitting it hard with his knees and palms.

He ducked his head, body shaking with each ragged breath, and braced himself. CAG would probably join in, now. Take his piece.

Lee stared down at him for a minute. "I'm calling it."

"The frak you are," one of the Marines snapped, stepping forward. "We're not done."

"Shut your frakking mouth," Lee said coolly. "I said I'm calling it. White flag."

Helo closed his eyes and rested his forehead on the flooring, muscles shuddering with relief too badly to hold him up. _Thank you. Gods, thank you._

"Raptor crews," Lee said, turning toward the door. "Get your boy to sickbay. Doc Cottle's waiting. And that's the _end_ of it. The flag is white. Get back to work or your racks or wherever the frak you want to go, I don't give a damn as long as it's not here and as long as I don't hear one more thing about it."  
**  
Doc Cottle coughed and pulled the curtain aside. "Ten minutes, Major."

Helo closed his eyes and tried to sink further into the pillow. He wondered if it would do a bit of good to say he didn't want to talk to anybody right now. Probably not. _Suck it up, Agathon.._

"How are you doing, Helo?"

Lee actually sounded halfway interested in the answer, and Helo looked at him, slowly licking his lips and pressing his tongue against the split and bloody skin as he tried to formulate an answer. "Just fine and dandy, Major. How are you?"

Lee smiled slightly and shook his head. "I just came down to let you know that Showboat's going to take your shift tomorrow, so you can have an extra day off your feet."

"That's real sweet of him." He swallowed and shifted on the bed, feeling every bruise and tear as a dull ache through the pain meds. "It's over, right? All taken care of?"

"You know the rules." Lee shrugged. "When it's done, it's done."

"So everybody's got it out of their systems and they're not going to be coming after me in dark corners."

"Not until the next time you do something frakking stupid because you decide it might be fun."

"Believe me, Lee, none of the things I've done have been for _fun_."

"I'm not interested in your reasons, Karl." Lee's voice was tired as he turned back to the curtain again. "I'm interested in getting you back on your feet, doing the scut work, and picking up the fill-in shifts on CAP. Think you can give me that?"

"Yes, sir," Helo said, staring up at the ceiling. "Will do."

"Take care of yourself."

Helo laughed softly and shook his head. "I always do, Major. Only one who will, so I always do."  



End file.
